Number Three
by stfulivlovesyou
Summary: "But today, practically two of my worst nightmares already came true, and I hadn't even heard from the voice yet." Finally completed with Chapter 3 up!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Can you say rewrites?! Oh, yes-- most definitely. I'd love it if I got some feedback since I made a ton of changes (for the better!) And by the way, I'm super sorry for not posting in forever. I hope you can forgive me because personally, I think the wait was worth it ;) **This is pre MR5!**

**loveyou, **_**Liv**_**.**

**Disclaimer: As much as I want to be a famous and successful author, I'm not; Read: I'm not James Patterson.**

Technically, my whole life has been one bad day after another. Today, though, might win a very high spot on my list of "The Ten Worst Suck-Fests That I Have Ever Been Subject To." Of course, I can't even count the years and _years_ of torture and pain and suffering in a dog crate at the School--You know, just normal stuff like that. That's a story for a different time . . . Back to today.

I'd bet my favorite Liam Rooney CD that you can't imagine what one of my bad days is actually like, because it would be _your worst nightmare_. Anyone's worst nightmare. Today was so horrible and embarrassing that I don't even know where to begin.

I guess I could start by telling you my name; It's Maximum Ride, Max, for short. Since we're getting to know each other, I should probably tell you that I'm fourteen years old, yet the farthest thing from your average fourteen year old girl there could be.

Actually, not to brag, I'm kind of amazing.

If I was even close to ordinary you'd think my bad day must be along the lines of breaking a nail or getting grounded by my dad. Something that's similarly _nice_ compared to my reality.

So really all of your theories are wrong, even if I can't read your mind. That's Angel's "talent." Reading minds, I mean, but now I'm just getting ahead of myself. Why are you so far from the truth, even if I havebroken a nail and quite a few other things many times over?

It just might have something to do with the fact that 1.) I don't even really have a dad, not one that counts anyways, and 2.) I'll never really be "grounded" because of my wings.

Wings as in the things on birds except mine are nine times bigger than the average parrot. Thirteen feet across, give or take a few inches. The best part of having wings besides never needing a Halloween costume again? I can actually _fly_. There's most definitely a reason people wish that they could: It's amazing.

As far as I know I'm the first, but not the only, successful human-avian hybrid in the world-- I'm only 98 percent human. That other two percent has had a _huge _impact, let me tell you. Two percent avian DNA equates to being freakishly tall at 5'8", freakishly lightweight at barely one hundred pounds, and not to mention my "talents." Flying at supersonic speeds, anyone? Oh, and if the wings weren't weird enough, there's the whole voice inside of my head thing.

If you can forget about your thoughts of me being a total and complete nutcase for a few seconds, I can explain.

There's six of us bird-kids-- Me, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. They're my flock, and to tell you the truth, I don't know what I'd do without them.

Fang's my right-hand man. He's fourteen, like me, but a couple of months younger. Ig is fourteen too but younger than me and Fang by a few months. The three of us are practically ancient compared to the rest of our flock. The next oldest in our freaky little mutant group is Nudge, who's eleven and then Gazzy who's eight. Angel, my baby, is only six. Don't let her age fool you though-- I'm pretty sure that if she had to she could kick your butt into next week. Gazzy and Angel are the only blood relatives in the flock, but the flock _is_ my family.

_But what about Fang? _Cue an involuntary, dumb-looking grin on my face. That's what tends to happen when I think about him. Sometimes I make an even bigger fool of myself when I stare at him while smiling that dumb-looking grin.

It is really difficult to figure out how I feel about him, because I know that sometimes he doesn't feel like just part of my family. He feels like a part of _me_.

"Earth to Max!" Angel shouts at me. I immediately blush, mainly due to that dumb smile of mine, and open my eyes. Angel just gives me a confused look. I must have been day-dreaming again, but in my defense, flying is really relaxing.

"I just wanted to know--"

Nudge cuts her off, "When are we getting food? 'Cause we haven't eaten in forever! I mean, we've been flying for how long? Like four hours straight? Or is it going on five? I'm so hungry! And I heard that McDonald's has some new chicken sandwich thing and it sounded really good. It has pickles on it! You know how much Iggy likes pickles. Hmm, did you ever wonder how pickles are made? I wonder--"

Her voice was cut off by Fang's hand, thankfully. I couldn't figure out what amazed me more, that she said all of that in one breath or that we'd been flying for that long and I hadn't even noticed. I'm starting to think that I'm losing touch with reality.

Before I even had a chance to say that we could land soon, Total, our talking dog, glided up to me. Yeah, as if flying kids weren't weird enough. Total had grown wings and could fly with us now for a couple of minutes.

Long story short, Angel "acquired" him at the Institute in New York. Then, while we were helping out some research scientists in Antarctica, he had fallen in love with a malamute named Akila who was currently resting in Iggy's arms.

Really after all that I've been through in the past couple of months I could believe in almost anything, even puppy love. Or say, me and Fang as _Me-and-Fang_. But that'll never happen in a billion years. Even if I do love him. Even if I do love him as more than a brother. I think.

"_WAIT A MINUTE_," screamed my subconscious. "_You can't love Fang. He. Is. Our. Brother. And also, our best friend. What will happen if we break up? What about the flock?!_"

Great, now I was arguing with myself. And I, in the form of my subconscious, had forced myself to banish all thoughts of _Me-and-Fang_. If you didn't think that was crazy the first time, go ahead and reread it.

Back in reality Total was explaining to me the pros and cons of reading those tabloid magazines you see in grocery store check outs. As if I needed one more thing to think about.

I heard Iggy grunt when he passed Akila off to Fang. Fang didn't make a sound, but I could tell with one look at his face that he was strained trying to carry the squirming Malamute that weighed almost as much as him.

I knew that for everyone it would be better to land sooner rather than later. Plus, it wouldn't take that long to walk to the McDonald's we were approaching. There's a McDonald's about every nineteen miles in America, just so you know. Cheap eats for us when we're on the run (cough, cough, pretty much our whole lives) is always a plus.

I signaled for everyone to land in the clearing somewhat behind the back of the building. After that we were basically on autopilot. We tucked in our wings and arranged our jackets so that you couldn't even tell we had them. Then we walked into the practically empty McDonald's looking as normal as possible despite a bit dirty.

"Hi, welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?" the girl who looked around my age if not a little bit older asked me while looking at Fang. At this point I started to think of all of the ways I could rip out her long blonde hair, but decided she wasn't worth it since Fang didn't even glance in her direction.

Without even looking at the menu I began to order, "I'll have two Big-Macs, a Chicken Selects thing, a large frie, a vanilla milkshake, a large Coke, and two apple pies."

Then I moved out of the way so that Fang could order next. The cashier looked at me in disbelief.

"You can order whatever you want, lunch is on Jeb," I said to the flock with a smile and a wave of my credit card. Then I glared at the girl who was now taking Fang's order. She was starting to make me nauseous. She was also starting to make me want to punch her in the face, only for Fang's benefit of course.

_Jealousss_, I heard being whispered into my mind by Angel.

_No. N-O. I am most certainly not jealous of other girls looking at Fang. Or Fang looking at other girls. Especially not ones like her, with her long blonde hair and all of her make-up. She looks like a Barbie doll for crying out loud. It's actually quite ridiculous and embarrassing all at the same time. _Sometimes when I "talked" to Angel I really sounded more like Nudge.

_Uh-huh. You are jealous! Max, sometimes I really think that you should acknowledge your feelings. It's not healthy to keep them all bottled up. _Then I heard a _tsk-tsk _noise and sighed. I had to choose my battles and this is not one I honestly wanted to fight a six-year-old about.

The rest when by in a blur. We ate and then got back into the air continuing to fly toward Canada, more or less. That's when my mind started to drift off again.

When I think of how naïve I was just hours ago at that McDonald's, I want to scream and/or punch myself in the face. Hard.

Today ranks in as a good, solid day three on my cheery list of "The Ten Worst Suck-Fests That I Have Ever Been Subject To." If I really had to rank how crap-filled some of my days had been, number one would definitely be a tie; When Fang had left me, our flock had split in half and went our separate ways for a few days--which I might add were incredibly long and stupid days, and when Angel was kidnapped by Erasers. Erasers being the only other somewhat successful mutants created by the school.

Erasers are lupine human hybrids. Part wolf, part human, wholly evil and wholly disgusting. They were trained to hunt and kill, and for the most part their prey was us. We, the Flock, were the only other hybrids that were smart enough to be a challenge to them. Now Erasers seem to be extinct, with the defeat of Itex and all, but we never know if they'll be back. Stranger things have happened.

Day two would have to be a three-way-tie, because when so many horrible things have happened to you, its hard to rank them. After escaping from the School, Jeb Batchelder hid us from the world and acted like our father, but two years later when he disappeared we knew he would never be back. That would definitely be a Number Two. Then there's the time where my half-brother slash Eraser-gone-wrong "expired" while I watched him die. Number Two for sure. When I saw Fang stuck like glue to the Red-Haired Wonder in Virginia? Number Two, possibly Number One and a Half.

Really, days when Fang is flirting with anyone in a skirt kinda make the list.

But today, practically two of my worst nightmares already came true and I hadn't even heard from the voice yet.


	2. Chapter 2

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A/N: So I promised updates "soon," but I tend to be a bit delayed with my writing. AKA, lazy. Also, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I'm always making little changes here and there. So, what did you think about the new and improved Chapter One? Here's Chapter Two, same as before, only a thousand times better. I hope!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, but one day Fang will be mine ;)**

So maybe I overreacted a bit, but my day was bad. Not the worst that could happen, but bad.

I kind of lost track of how my day went so wrong.

Maybe at the part where I accidentally told Fang my real feelings about him? Or maybe it was when I realized that _everyone_ could recognize us now? Kudos to all of the press at the opening of the Lerner School for Gifted Children. I mean, we didn't even stay at that school for the whole grand-opening party, which Nudge and Angel were disappointed about, but they still managed to get a zillion pictures of us! Oh, and did I mention the whole telling Fang how I felt about him thing? Yeeeah, real smooth, Max.

Both of those are worst-case-scenarios. And to think that today started out pretty normal. Well, as normal as possible for six mutant kids on the run.

Rewind back to earlier today, after we left that McDonald's.

We were on our way to somewhere in New York according to the coordinates the voice had given me in Virginia. This time I was paying attention to how long we were flying so we could stop to camp out for the night.

The whole setting up camp in a park was kind of getting old and I honestly wouldn't remember this night anymore than the dozens of others like it. Except for what happened next.

As usual, Ig was on fire duty, Nudge was unpacking food, and Gazzy and Angel were "securing the perimeter." I would have expected Fang to be keeping an eye on everyone while he updated his Blog, but he was deep in thought, almost fading into a tree.

I interrupted everyone's concentration, "Hey, guys, I'm going to run to the store and grab some snacks for in the morning. We're in for the long haul tomorrow. I think we still have somewhere around 150 miles left to cover."

As soon as I said this, Fang offered to go too. My eyebrows shot up. I would only have been more surprised if Nudge stopped talking for twenty-four hours straight since Fang hated shopping even more than me.

His explanation? "I think you'll need help carrying the bags back here." Hah, ooookay Fangy-boy. I really didn't care if anyone came with me, but I was glad for the company. And I was glad that the company happened to be Fang. You know, as my right wing man and all.

* * *

Flying to a super store took no more than four minutes and we landed quickly near a back entrance. As soon as we got inside, I grabbed a cart and practically ran through the store like I was in a marathon. Our list: soap, shampoo, toothbrushes (because you can only be a grungy mutant for so long before it gets old), food, water, and some dog food for Akila.

When I was in the middle of picking out a new outfit for each of us, a splurge I tell you, a woman with an iPhone was staring at us. I didn't even have to see her to know that her eyes were attached to the back of my head, I could _feel_ it. Ten bucks says she was checking the news about the Lerner School with that stupid phone.

She began to walk closer and I held on to Fang's arm, ready to run. But before I could, she asked, "Aren't you Max and Fang? Those miracle kids? You know, the ones with wings?" I went so pale at that moment and I thought that I was going to pass out. Point to Max.

"Us? Kids with wings? Do we look like kids with wings?" asked Fang, never breaking a sweat.

I regained my composure and started going on about this intricate lie, nervous laugh and all, "Hah, no. We aren't them, but we get that a lot. I guess we look like them. I mean, me with wings? And all of that running? I couldn't handle camping, let alone living outside _all of the time_. Right, sweetie?" and then I gave Fang a look that said "I might be insane, but just go along with it."

He responded by squeezing me a little closer and telling the woman, "Yeah, right, honey bun." I was going to kill him when this was over, I mean "honey bun"? What the hell?! But I felt my insides melt a little when his arm was around me.

I continued, "We're just running though here, registering for our wedding," and with that I stood on my tip-toes and kissed Fang straight on the lips. He was shocked at first, but then he kissed me back.

The woman looked startled after the whole raging hormones display she just witnessed. Clearing her throat she said, "Oh, sorry. My mistake," and walked away shaking her head. My guess is that she believed my wedding story, but it most likely helped that Fang and I looked a lot older that we actually are.

Before we got to the checkout line, I stopped back at the hair products and grabbed a couple boxes of hair dye in different colors. You can never be too careful…

* * *

Trudging through the forest on our walk to camp with our hands full of bags, Fang asked me a question. "Max, how do you really feel about me? About us?" he said, "I know that the wedding story was a lie, but the kiss didn't feel fake." _Oh, crap._ There never was more of a time that I regretted not being about to fly away. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. Insert foot here. "Fang, I really don't know. I mean we're only fourteen. Fourteen! And then there's the whole issue of the flock? Did you think about how they feel?" _Jeez, do we really need to have this little sharing of feelings powwow?_

Fang looked as impassive as usual when he said, "I'm not asking you to marry me, Max," Then so softly I'm not sure if I even heard it right, "At least not yet."

I couldn't believe what was happening to me, I was turning into a bowl of mush _over a guy_, but not just any guy. He was Fang for crying out loud.

I took a deep breath and then began as sarcastically as possible, "Fine, Fang, if you really want to know how I feel." This turned into me almost shaking with anger and disbelief that I was feeling the way that I did. Quite a few decibels louder without an ounce of sarcasm, I screamed at him, "You're so infuriating! I freaking _love_ you. Okay? Happy now?"

Reality sank in. I ran. As fast as mutantly possible. Hot, angry tears were running down my face at this point. I don't know who I was more upset with: myself for being such an idiot, such a freaking girl, or Fang for being unresponsive for the five seconds after my confession that I stood there in front of him, offering myself. Five painfully slow seconds, might I add, during which time all of my senses were hyperaware of him just staring at me.

Finally back at camp, I dropped off all of the bags that were the main force stopping me from a nice long, uninterrupted visit with Hawaii or some other seemingly peaceful place. Anywhere but where Fang was. The stop at camp was necessary because I wouldn't want to waste all of the stuff that the Flock sorely needed. Like, hmmm, soap-- time to get reacquainted with the Flock! But of course my stop raised questions.

As soon as Angel saw my face covered in tear streaks, she gasped. Chain reaction effect: Nudge heard Angel's sharp intake of breath and turned around. Her motor mouth simultaneously started running.

"Max, what happened?! Were you crying? Did something happen in town? Where's Fang? Oh my God, the robofreaks got him, didn't they? Oh, God. Oh, God. Are you okay? Did they hur--." This commercial break brought to you by Iggy. Thank you! I still had to count the small blessings in my life.

From the way she was questioning me, she could definitely get a job as an interrogator, though. Maybe Anne could hook her up with the FBI. Yeah, and maybe pigs can fly. Even in times when I'm an emotional basket case, I never fail to make myself chuckle.

And, just for the record, I was not sobbing or anything like that. It was simply just a _few_ tears. Until I saw Fang _strolling _in to camp, like nothing had happened just a few minutes before. Obvious conclusion? He has the emotional capacity of dirt. That's when I got close to having a break down.

I kind of just let out a squeak when I tried to say, "I'm going for a fly." That's when I flew at super-sonic speed and ended up here where I am now, flying due west at say, 200 mile per hour. Where "here" is though I have no clue.

* * *

Max. Max. _Max_. That's all that was on Fang's mind as he walked toward camp from where Max had left him. God, how could he have been so stupid? What kind of guy just stands there when his best friend finally tells him that she loves him? As more than a friend.

"Max," Fang sighed, completely confused and even more frustrated. Why would she just keep running away, crying, if she loved him? Just like he loved her. It had to be one of the worst feelings in the world because A.) he was helpless to make her feel better and B.) he had been the one who had caused her to cry.

Crap. He was starting to wonder if he had a girl-repellent gene. Scratch that, Lissa didn't seem too repelled but then again she wasn't Max. A bird-girl-repellent gene. He was sure that the scientists who screwed up most of his DNA, recombining it with DNA from a bird, could have probably done something like that too.

Already, he had made his way back to camp after thinking about Max the whole entire time, of course. His plan was to act as normal as possible until the rest of the Flock went to sleep so that he could finally talk to Max alone. About earlier. Without her running away. Easier said than done.

He hadn't been back for a full minute before Max flew off, looking completely pissed and completely hurt. She'd be back within an hour and maybe then they could talk… Max always made his life more complicated, but he wouldn't have it any other way.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Finally I'm getting this story written down, over a freaking year after I started it. I can't even tell you how excited I am to finish this thing and how excited I am that I finally got over any writer's block and sat down to write. Ahhhh! It's been an awesome learning experience and I can't wait to write more stories (that'll actually get done in a reasonable amount of time!). Any feedback is appreciated! **

**loveyou, **_**Liv**_**.**

**Disclaimer: Okay, **_**fine**_**. I don't own the flock. Are you happy now? **_**(as told to the literary police and their tazers) **_

"Max? Max! Guys, I think I found her!" My first thought when I woke up curled into in a ball under a tree was that I would never need an alarm clock again as long as Nudge was around. Currently, she was screaming near my face.

I don't know how the Flock found me. The last thing I remembered was landing and sitting under a tree, disoriented from the flood of emotions that had been coming and going my way since the earlier incident with Fang. I guessed that I fell asleep, but for once, not in a School induced way. By now it was pretty dark; it had to be around midnight. It made sense that when I didn't come back in an hour, they came looking for me.

I could see the dark circles under Angel's and Gazzy's eyes. I only imagined how long it took them to find me, how long they were flying around worried about me. I knew I would do the exact same thing if it was one of them missing instead of me.

I glanced around at everyone. My eyes connected with Fang's, and I looked away embarrassed. As much as I _totally_ wanted to talk to him at this point, note the sarcasm dripping off of my words, I realized that it would have to wait. Camp would have to be set up in this sad excuse of a park, and we would have to wait until later tomorrow to keep moving toward the new coordinates. My little joy flight had now set us back two more hours in the air.

Good job, Max. You really know how to be a great leader. Running away had just caused more problems. I felt horrible.

_Max, don't feel bad. Everyone knew you needed some time alone. But you did scare us! _Angel drifted off with, _Fang especially… _She really had no clue about the depth of my issues for once and I planned to keep it that way. The only possible way out of this mess, I started explaining myself, _I didn't mean to make everyone upset. If I wouldn't have fallen asleep, I would have been back at camp hours ago._

_Okay, whatever you say, but I still don't even know what happened earlier. It was like your thoughts were all mashed up in a blender_, she told me.

I took a deep breath, ready to tell to her as much as I could without the details of _me-and-Fang_, when she started "talking" to me again. _Max, the only reason we could even find you was because you told me before you flew away. _

This time I did say something out loud, "What do you mean I told you?" my voice cracking a bit at the end. I had no clue what she was talking about. So in addition to being an emotional basket case, I was also losing my mind.

Fang turned his head toward us, and when I saw him I immediately felt my face heat up. He just smirked at me. Then, I remembered everything that happened in the last twelve hours. I glared at him before returning my gaze to Gazzy and Angel who were standing right in front of me.

"-and then you just flew off, right after you said, 'I'm going to my mom's.' See? You told us where you were headed!" Angel finished.

"Oh, okay," I accepted her story for the missing gaps in my own memories. I didn't have enough energy to really inquire about it more tonight. Everyone slowly drifted towards their sleeping quarters and dozed off for the night, Fang took first watch. I slept like a log.

We woke up, we ate breakfast, but just as we were about to start flying for the day, I was completely distracted by the flash of feathers and the screams I heard coming towards me.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaax!" Nudge cried, barreling towards me. "Iggy found the hair dye and he wants to make my hair black!" she whined. "Tell him he can't, Max. Especially because, one, it involves chemicals and, two, it involves him being blind and using chemicals. On. My. Hair! He'll make it fall out," she said dramatically.

Iggy turns to me and shrugs his shoulders. "Never mind, Nudge. I mean, if you don't want me to, then I guess I can just use the kit for something else. Something illegal," and he grins wildly. The nerve of that boy.

I hoped to avoid a crisis and also avoid talking to Fang. I started by telling everyone my plan from the store that involved the hair dye. "Well, you guys all know that everyone can recognize us now. Our pictures are everywhere since the Lerner School opening. Including in freaking magazines!" and with that I give Total some well deserved praise for planting the seed to check out tabloids in my brain. Back on topic, I said, "This calls for a disguise, a less sophisticated makeover than the ones we got in New York, but it'll do for now."

I cleared my throat and with that I did some Vanna White hand motions, toward the hair dye boxes, still in plastic bags by the rest of the supplies. Cue a collective groan from the Flock. I could tell this was going to be like pulling teeth.

"Come on, everyone! I have it all planned out. Fang, you're going brown. Something less black, you know? Ig, you're going to be a light blond. Nudge, hopefully you'll be okay with black as long as Iggy isn't the one dyeing your hair. Gazzy and Ang, how do brown and red sound to you? Gazzy starring as a brunette and Angel with red hair!" I really tried to sell it.

More protests, of course, all coming at once. "I'm not dyeing my hair!-But, Max, I want to have the brown-Why would you pick red for her?" Exactly what I didn't want to happen.

Everything settled down and we got to business in the bathrooms at the park after a few swaps of the kits. I ended up passing my own dark brown kit around to the flock to avoid a meltdown. I didn't look at my dye before Nudge started on my hair after I had volunteered to go first. Two hours and lots of hair dye down the drain later, we all revealed our new looks to each other and got first glimpses in the mirror at ourselves. My hair was red. RED.

"Nudge, why is my hair really, really red?" I screamed. She backed up three steps to get away from me and tried to play the "I don't know what you're talking about" card. "Um, because you said you didn't care?" she tried. Okay, maybe I did say that. But, red? Flaming red. Like, Lissa's-hair-red. This was not going to work for me. The only thought in my head at this point was to start squirting soap into my hands and scrubbing the life out of my hair until it sort of resembled its usual golden color. Fang grabbed my hands before I got the chance. _Crap._

I wanted to cry for the second time recently. Then, I rationalized with myself. That went a little like this: _C'mon, Max. Your hair isn't _you!Brilliant, right? A few deep cleansing breaths later I was ready to go, but Fang's hands hadn't quite left my arms. I shrugged him off and started for camp without saying a word.

Apparently, this was a shocker for Angel and she shot an appropriate look at me. I for one actually liked calm, tranquil Max who was at peace with her radical transformation. Even if this Max did still think that she looked a little too much like a certain Red Haired Wonder. And then I started to remember that I am _not_ crazy, so my other personality disappeared. So did my reasoning.

Packing up what little we had wouldn't take long, and either would flying far, far away. Those were my two goals that I had hoped to accomplish immediately, but, of course, things never work out that way. The flock followed me back. Almost as if they knew, they began to grab their gear. Well, everyone but Fang grabbed their gear. Instead, he walked towards me with a look of determination on his face. The rest of the flock miraculously flew away without a backward glance.

I couldn't help but feel the hastily planned plot against me. Even bambi-eyes won't be able to help Angel when I catch up to her later, because I knew that she was the mastermind. Meanwhile, I was frozen in place with Fang's eyes looking into me like he'd never seen me before.

"I like the red," he said with a smirk. And then he brushed my hair away from my face. I tensed up even more. I could face an entire army of mutants trying to kill me, but this was excruciating. I could feel his breath and hear his heartbeat going almost as fast as mine was.

And then he walked away.

* * *

Of course he was an idiot. I mean, who says things like, "_I like the red_"? Even in his head it sounded stupid. Fang stood yards away from Max covered by a tree that he wanted to pound his head into. Instead, he settled for slapping his palm into his forehead repeatedly.

As if his comment wasn't bad enough, he freaking walked away from Max when all he wanted to do was hold her and, if he got lucky, kiss her. And he was so close. He could _feel_ the change in the air when they got close to each other and he knew that Max did too.

If he hadn't known her for so long, he barely would have noticed the blush that crept up Max's neck and the subtle way that she twisted her ring around her finger when she was nervous. Like when she was around him. And now he blew it. He'd be happy if she would even talk to him again, but at this rate, it seemed unlikely. _What the hell. _

He decided to walk back into Max's view, even though he could see her perfectly from the trees. And she still looked stunned. She looked into him with a question on her face, which he could only answer one way. He went for it-He kissed her like he'd seen it a thousand times in the movies. And then he kissed her again before she had time to open her big mouth and ruin the moment.

"I like the blond," she said to him, smiling with her fingers in his newly bleached hair. His hand was still cupping her chin, but it didn't seem like she cared one bit. Well, that was a first. But what he said next surprised him even more.

"I freaking _love_ you too, okay?" Fang said. And then _Max_ kissed him, without a story to hide behind or either of them near death. That was definitely a first. Fang smiled a real smile and thought to himself how this might just be a Number Three on his list, "The Ten Best Times to Be a Mutant Freak." Maybe even a Number One. But then he thought about the future, and he knew that it was only going to get better. After all, he'd be with Max.


End file.
